Second BART strike looms as labor talks resume and workers lash out at management

OAKLAND -- As anger from BART workers bubbled over during a public showdown Thursday, management and unions were set to return to the bargaining table Friday for the first time since the workers' strike was temporarily halted.

More than a dozen union workers lashed out at the BART Board of Directors during its regular meeting and vowed to shut down the rail line again if they don't reach a deal before their 30-day contract extension expires Aug. 4.

"We will be prepared for the war that you all have launched on your workforce," Roxanne Sanchez, president of the local Service Employees International Union, told the board. Unless the agency changes its stance at the negotiation table, she said, "We will be prepared for the bloodiest, longest strike since the 1970s," when a labor dispute shut down BART for three months in 1979.

The Coliseum BART platform remains empty on the second day of a strike July 2, 2013. (Ray Chavez/Staff file)

During the tense 3½-hour meeting in Oakland, other workers cursed, accused BART management of "not giving a crap" about them, charged the directors with "acting like children" and demanded that the agency fire its chief negotiator.

The public salvo fired from the unions amps up their new strategy, launched this week, to place the spotlight on top BART executives' six-figure salaries. In recent weeks, many Bay Area residents have criticized blue-collar workers for striking while demanding large raises when their average gross pay is already nearly $80,000 and they contribute nothing toward their pensions.

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On Monday, the unions gathered outside the home of General Manager Grace Crunican, who earned more than $316,000 last year, and demanded that she sign a novelty-sized check giving some of her salary to taxpayers. Then they rallied at board President Tom Radulovich's office on Wednesday. The unions have also blasted the board's decision to pay $399,000 to a consultant to lead negotiations.

BART managers, for their part, are sticking by the advice from the top state mediators appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown, who have asked both sides to keep the details of the talks confidential and not to disparage one another publicly. At the end of the string of public comment, BART directors adjourned the meeting without responding.

"We're definitely trying to keep everything at the bargaining table," BART spokesman Rick Rice said in an interview later. "We're hoping that the energy can get focused on the important issues of reaching a contract -- one that's fair for our workers and sustainable for our system."

Earlier in the meeting, board Vice President Joel Keller said, "We have to work really hard during this next 30 days to get this done because we don't want to inconvenience our riders again in August."

After the contract for about 2,300 blue-collar workers expired at the end of June, BART workers went on strike on July 1 and shut down the nation's fifth-largest rail system for 4½ days. A deal reached late on the Fourth of July called for employees to return to work for 30 days under the terms of their old deal while both sides tried to hammer out a long-term contract.

After a break over the weekend, the mediators met privately with union leaders Tuesday and Wednesday and with BART management on Thursday. The opposing sides, along with the mediator, expect to return to the bargaining table on Friday at a neutral office in Oakland for the first time in eight days.

Both sides, as they did before the last strike, continue to maintain that reaching a settlement is their top priority. But they remain far apart on the main sticking points: pay raises and worker contributions to health care and pensions.

Although many riders were frustrated by the strike, the hangover effect has been relatively minor since the first full day of weekday service on Monday.

From Monday through Wednesday, helped by the San Francisco Giants' three-day homestand against the New York Mets, BART carried an average of 387,194 one-way trips per day. That's a 3.1 percent drop from the last similar stretch, from Monday, June 17, to Wednesday, June 19, when the Giants hosted three games against the San Diego Padres and BART drew 399,457 daily one-way riders.

BART rider counts so far this week have been lower than any Monday-through-Wednesday stretch of last month, even though BART typically carries slightly more riders in July than in June.